


The Endless Days

by NightsMistress



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 09:53:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, Tommy was sure that they'd go back to being superheroes within a week. It took three hundred and forty days before he left.</p><p>(Takes place between Avengers: The Children's Crusade #9 and Young Avengers v2 #1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Endless Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cris-Art](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cris-Art).



> Thank you to cris-art for drawing such an interesting image, and to caterpills who for some reason didn't run away when I said "HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BETA A SECOND STORY". ♥
> 
>  

_Seven Days After_

At first, Tommy was sure that they’d go back to being superheroes within a week. They’d go to the funeral, and afterward go out and fight crime and with every bad guy they knock into the ground and every purse they return dedicate it to Cassie, Jonas and if they were feeling really charitable, Nate. After a few weeks, it wouldn’t be like it was when everyone was alive, but it would be good in a different way. They could move on with their lives. 

Tommy was very big on moving on, preferably as fast as possible. Sure, bad stuff happened, but there was no point dwelling on the bad stuff that had already happened. You might as well face the next challenge with a cocky grin and explosive force building at your fingertips, because that at least you could change. The past wasn’t about to change, so it was better to get away from it as fast as possible.

It seemed that Billy’s plans were to follow the exact opposite trajectory.

Cassie’s funeral had sucked. Tommy had suggested that they ditch the suits, blow the funeral off, then go and punch some bad guys. Kate had rolled her eyes and told him that he wasn’t fooling anyone, Eli looked like he wanted to punch Tommy, Teddy sighed with that pinched look between his eyebrows and Billy didn’t look up from his miserable examination of his feet. Tommy got through the speeches by deciding where he would run to afterwards, and whether he’d pick up postcards just to prove that he had been to Astana. He’d already been to Calgary that morning.

He had wanted to avoid speaking to Cassie’s mother. Fortunately, the feeling seemed to be mutual; she glared daggers at them and there were whispers about how it was all their fault, but she didn’t come up and say that to their faces. It wasn’t like she needed to; the funeral was _happening_ because of them, and the looks of broken recrimination from Cassie’s mother and stepfather were reminder enough.

Cassie’s father was worse. Tommy had only met him once and the circumstances weren’t ideal. He didn’t blame them. In fact he didn’t mention the Young Avengers at all. When he did speak, which wasn’t often, it was how he had had a wonderful, brave daughter who had died to bring back someone who should have stayed dead. Tommy wasn’t good at reading people — if he had been then his life would have been a lot less complicated — but even he could see the core of furious misery nestled in the heart of Scott Lang’s words. It’s the same furious misery that drove Tommy to lash out with his powers and blow up his school: the sure, terrible knowledge that lashing out won’t change what makes you so angry but it’s all you have.

He avoided Cassie’s father.

To compound matters, they didn’t go out to fight crime later. Instead, they took Eli back to JFK to fly home, all of them standing around awkwardly at the departure gate trying not to say what they were all thinking. This was the end, Tommy knew, and while he wasn’t entirely sure he liked Eli, he was sure that he wouldn’t like what would follow after Eli left. Eli had been one of the two de facto leaders for as long as Tommy had been part of the Young Avengers, and the fact that he was leaving just made it final: there would be no more Young Avengers.

“I could run you back to Scottsdale,” he told Eli at the departure gate. “I could beat the plane easy.”

“It’s not that long a flight,” Eli said. There’s a wry smile dimpling the corner of his mouth, and Tommy thinks that he might have been convinced had the others not been there. It’s easy to remember why Eli chose to leave the team and New York when he could see the absence where Cassie and the Vision used to be.

“Your call,” Tommy said, shrugging. He couldn’t be bothered taking up the argument. “But if you get bored up there remember you could have flown Air Speed.”

“Are you sure you don’t do feelings?” Eli said.

“Shut up and get on the plane,” Tommy said, folding his arms.

“Aw,” Kate said, hiding her grin behind her hand. “Cute.”

“It was nice seeing you again,” Teddy said to Eli. “You’ll be on Skype next weekend?”

“Scottsdale’s not that exciting that I’ll forget,” Eli said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be there.”

“If you won’t, Billy will cry or something,” Tommy said. He glanced surreptitiously at Billy, but he didn’t react. Instead he just kept staring at his feet. “Can’t break up that manlove between you two.” Still no response from Billy, though Teddy was starting to give Tommy a strange look.

Eli just walked through the departure gate, looking back just once before he disappeared from view. It was unspeakably sad, and Tommy didn’t understand why, which just frustrated him. He revised his expectations for their returning to superheroic life to two weeks.

_Fifteen Days After_

The second week passed, and Billy was sleeping upwards of twenty hours a day. 

“I don’t know how he does it,” Tommy complained to Kate over Skype. “I’d go _crazy_ if I was still that long.” He expected her to say _he’s not you, you can’t expect him to react like you would_. Instead she invited him to one of her training sessions. He dodged arrows for a few hours, laughing at how _slow_ they were.

“Thanks,” Kate said to him afterward, swiping her hair off her face where it had stuck. “If …” She stopped. “ _When_ some of us go back to being superheroes, I don’t want us being too out of practice.”

“See!” Tommy said. “I _told_ you that we wouldn’t quit permanently.”

Kate’s smile was wry. “It’s what we are.”

“I know that,” Tommy said. “Anyway, later. Maybe I’ll see you around.” He waved, nearly too fast to see, and raced through Manhattan’s streets. When he arrived his phone was buzzing. It was a message from Kate: _Maybe. If you’re lucky._

Tommy was pretty sure he was lucky enough for this. It was that thought that buoyed him through the ritual called Getting Billy To Act Like a Human Being And Eat Dinner With Them, though when he called it that aloud Mrs Kaplan gave him a firm talking to about how they needed to support Billy through this difficult time. Tommy wasn’t even sure that Billy had even heard him. Teddy had, and had glared at him under his eyebrows, to which Tommy just shrugged. He’d call it something else when Billy did more than pick at his food when he was told to by Teddy.

That night he started a list of things that he thought Billy should change before things would be better. He wrote, in the nearly incoherent scrawl that used to make his teachers despair and wish he would use a computer — right up until he blew up the school, of course — ‘is awake more than he sleeps’ and ‘eats’. After a moment’s thought, and making a face in Kate’s general direction, he adds ‘replies to Kate’s texts’. She hadn’t told him about it, of course, but the silence that stretched between her words when she asked how Billy was going made it really clear that he wasn’t responding when she messaged. Kate normally spoke quite quickly when talking to Tommy alone, knowing that even then every word was as slow as a resting heartbeat to him. For her to speak like everyone else, with an eternity between each word, was not a good sign.

The list done, he settled as best he could, resting his fingers against the duvet and tapping a soft staccato on the fabric. He used to tap against the walls of the old hideout, before he was whisked away to the cloying nest of upper middle class comfort, and while he doesn’t miss the way that the wind would cut through the building in the winter, he did miss being able to be as loud as he wanted. Even lying as still as he was now, with just his fingers tapping a rhythm in time with his left foot’s beat, he wants to _move_.

He counted his breathing until he fell asleep and woke up as he normally did; four hours later and tangled in the blankets. The sun hadn’t come up yet, and Tommy yearned to just jump through the window and disappear into the night. Instead, he shot a filthy look through the wall where Billy’s room is and tried to fall asleep again.

_Twenty-five to Twenty-Seven Days After_

The third week passed and still no change. Tommy was getting used to waking up in the early hours of the morning and all but vibrating with the need to go _somewhere_. 

He broke more crockery this way, and felt peculiarly guilty when Dr Kaplan and Mrs Kaplan didn’t even mind. His mother would have pursed her lips and carefully not said that replacing that mug meant that they weren’t able to get brand name food this week. Tommy was pretty sure that Billy hadn’t eaten ramen for six nights straight because it was on special, and he wished he could be resentful about the amount of really expensive things that Billy had and didn’t even value. Instead, the Kaplans were so unstintingly generous about sharing it with the stray boys that had showed up one day that he felt guilty being resentful. Then he felt resentful that he felt guilty about being resentful. It was a vicious cycle.

“I’m becoming like _you_ ,” he complained to Billy one day, who was doing his best impression of a grimy, unwashed statue. Billy didn’t say anything in response or even react at all, even after Tommy had waited a minute. After he gave up, rolled his eyes and returned to his room, Tommy made sure to write ‘gives a damn about things’ on his list.

He’d tried poking Billy a few more times, in increasingly invasive ways, just to see what he would do. Teddy came home during one of these attempts, which had Tommy slip ice cubes down Billy’s shirt, and just stared at the scene.

“What are you doing?” he said finally, his gaze pointedly taking in the spreading puddle on the hardwood floor.

“The floor’s leaking,” Tommy said. “Maybe we should get that fixed.”

“And I suppose that has nothing to do with the ice tray on the coffee table.”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe.”

Teddy sighed. “You’re better than this,” he said, heading towards the linen closet to fetch towels to lay on the ground to sop up the water. “Talk to me next time you’re bored. We’ll do something that doesn’t involve you ruining Mrs Kaplan’s furniture _or_ making Billy catch a cold.”

“Aren’t you going to yell at me?” Tommy said. This was not going as he had expected.

“No,” Teddy said, pushing himself up from his hands and knees and resting on the heels of his feet. “It wouldn’t do any good.”

Tommy couldn’t deny the truth of that. He also wasn’t sure when Teddy had shifted from Billy’s boyfriend to a possible ally in Tommy’s quest to not be driven utterly insane by the sheer stifling stagnation that permeated the entire house, but he didn’t really care to think about it too hard either. He did, however, give up on trying to provoke a reaction out of Billy that way.

_Twenty-Nine Days After_

Tommy took Teddy up on his offer late at night early into the fourth week, and thought he should be canonized as a saint for having waited so long. Had Teddy been asleep, Tommy might have felt a tiny bit guilty waking him up, but he knew that he wasn’t. The walls weren’t thin enough that he could hear what Teddy was doing — to which he was eternally grateful back when Teddy and Billy would have sex — but after spending so long living with him he knew his routines. As such, he was unsurprised to see that Teddy was still awake or that he looked like hell even in the poor light cast from the external lights. 

“You can’t like this any more than I do,” he said by way of greeting, vibrating through the wall and flopping on to the bed. Teddy muttered something about having locked the door for a reason, not looking up from his book, and Tommy dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

“You said this last week,” Teddy said finally, putting the book down on the desk. “What’s so important about it now?” Tommy craned his head and made a face. If he wanted to know what happened with Gatsby he’d watch the movie. At least there were hot chicks in it, even if period outfits wasn’t Tommy’s thing.

“It’s still true,” Tommy said. “Besides, you know you missed me.”

Teddy opened his mouth.

“ _And_ ,” Tommy said, pointing with his finger, “You miss being a superhero more. Come on, let’s go.”

“We just need more time,” Teddy said finally, sitting up on his bed.

“You mean _Billy_ needs more time. I’m not asking him. I’m asking _you_.”

Tommy wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking Teddy. It could be because Kate wasn’t answering his texts on account of being overseas saving the whales or whatever she did this week, but if he was being honest it was because Teddy was the only one who understood what being a superhero _meant_ to Tommy.

“Maybe in a few weeks,” Teddy said after what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only a few seconds, super speed was deceptive like that). Tommy groaned, which did nothing to shift the strange, sad smile that Teddy had.

“Fine, don’t say I never asked,” Tommy said, vibrating through the wall into the room that Billy had magicked up back when he didn’t pretend he wasn’t a superpowered sorcerer mutant.

“He’s not getting any better,” he said to Kate over Skype the next time she was available. “He just _sleeps. All the time_. No one else is doing that. I’m not doing that!”

“He’s not you,” Kate said. She looked tired and drawn, with a black eye forming around her left eye. “Just because he looks like you doesn’t mean he acts like you.”

“Yeah, I know that!”

“Don’t let it bother you. He’s just handling it in a different way to you.”

Tommy shrugged and then added ‘stops being a zombie’ to the list.

_Thirty-five to Forty-Nine Days After_

Tommy has always hated the past as it related to him specifically. It’s always seemed like something people fixate on when they don’t need to. However, his experiences at school have meant that he has learned to hate history as a subject. As it turned out, it was the class that Billy had been enrolled in, until he stopped caring about anything. 

“Billy Kaplan,” Mr Maher said after scanning the room for volunteers to answer his question. He stared at Tommy as he said Billy’s name, clearly expecting him to answer.

“I’m his _cousin_ ,” Tommy said, rolling his eyes. He honestly didn’t know why this kept happening, though it had stopped happening as often as it used to. “We don’t even look alike.”

“Of course,” Mr Maher said. “Now what do you know about the causes behind the Russian Revolution?”

“Stupid hats,” Tommy said quickly, and grinned as the class giggled around him. Mister Maher pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’d like to see you after class, Thomas,” Mister Maher said after the giggles ceased. There was a collective _oooh, he’s in trouble_ , and Tommy just shrugged. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. It wasn’t even the first time that he’d been asked to stay back that week. If there was something Tommy could recite by now, it’s the speech where he’s wasting his potential. Tommy disliked the ones where they asked why he couldn’t be more like Billy the most. Obviously they didn’t know that much about Billy, if they thought that Tommy ever wanted to be like him.

“Sorry Mr M,” Tommy said at the end of class. “I have to schedule you in with my other detentions. I’m very popular today.”

“That’s not why I asked you to stay back,” Mr Maher said. “Though thank you for your busy social calendar.” He pursed his lips. “How is Billy?”

This was the other thing that annoyed Tommy. From his first day at school where some loser tried to break his nose — a process that Tommy solved by breaking his first — Tommy was acutely aware that Billy was one of the more bullied kids in school and the expectation was that Tommy would inherit that mantle. Tommy thought it was rather telling that now that Billy wished he was dead that his teachers cared. Of course they cared _now_ ; it would look pretty bad if their star student killed himself with his freaky powers because they let him get beaten up every day.

“He doesn’t think about you at all,” Tommy said honestly. He barely kept the smirk off his face as Mr Maher winced. “But he’s doing great.”

Billy was sleeping seventeen hours a day, and when he was dragged downstairs he still looked horrible and miserable. But Tommy wasn’t about to let that slip, not to this nosy adult who could have done his job earlier. However, Mr Maher was giving him a skeptical look over his wire-rimmed glasses.

“There’s no need for the attitude, Thomas.”

“Of course not,” Tommy said. “It’s just fun.”

That comment earned Tommy another detention which he had no intention of attending. Tommy collected detentions, but never attended any of them. It was a point of pride to him.

At the end of the day, he packed up his books deliberately slowly, daring his algebra teacher to hold him back, then waved, vaulted over the nearest desk and on the landing sprung up and through the open window. 

“Later!” he called back, before taking off at a run. He didn’t get very far, just down to Florida where he had to stop because his legs hurt. That was genuinely horrifying. He was a speedster who couldn’t run.

“I’m going to have to do track,” he said aloud, to the indifference of the tourists boiling themselves alive in the sun. He quickly discarded this idea, as there was no way he was going to run slower just so that normal people didn’t get their feelings hurt.

The obvious answer was just to go. Go anywhere other than back to the Kaplans, with their suffocating niceness, because there had to be a trick to it eventually. He had spent so long there that he had lost the ability to _run_ , and that was something even juvie hadn’t taken away from him. He should go off to anywhere he wanted and come back when he felt like it.

Instead he ran back to the Kaplans, and listened as he was told that while they would support him in whatever he chose to do, he still had to go to the detentions he had earned. Tommy did, and resisted the urge to snap and walk away as Billy’s teachers kept asking how he was, and giving him homework to take home for him. He had tried to tell Billy’s teachers that he didn’t care, but hope springs eternal, they must think. Alternatively the thought the _he_ meant Tommy, who everyone knew didn’t care about AP English, and not Billy.

It all came to a head one afternoon on the sixth week, when Tommy was left to bring in Billy’s assigned reading because they had yet another teacher in common.

He ran up the stairs two at a time, because it was faster and because unlike everyone else it didn’t make his legs burn with the strain. It was just hard enough to be interesting, and Tommy was in dire need of interesting physical challenges. He had entirely too much pent up energy that needed to be spent somewhere.

Billy’s door was closed, but not locked. Tommy was peculiarly annoyed about this, because at least if it were locked then he could practice his super vibration powers for when he got out of suburban purgatory and became a spy, which was his chosen profession for the day.

The room was how it was yesterday, and the day before and almost every other day that Tommy came in to drop off Billy’s assignments. The bed in the corner had Billy asleep on it, as he was every other time, with enough school assigned texts to form a paper cocoon around him. 

“Can’t you clean up your own mess?” Tommy said in annoyance, completely ignoring the fact that the reason why there were so many books around Billy was that Tommy kept tossing them at the bed most days after school. Billy shifted in his sleep, knocking a book to the floor, but didn’t respond immediately.

With a martyred sigh, Tommy started collecting the books into piles and stacking them onto the desk. He started with the largest, thickest books at the bottom and built spires to books with really boring covers. He supposed that was the test for whether a book was ‘literature’ or not, because he knew that he wouldn’t read any of these books based on the covers. Maybe it was a literary hipster thing.

He had to stop moving quickly though when he got to the books closest to Billy, and carefully remove the books. Tommy was out of practice using super speed for precision, and he was pretty sure that Billy would wake up if he accidentally broke his arm grabbing a ton of books away. The down side though was that removing the books was almost too much like tearing away a protective cocoon from someone. Tommy hadn’t really been the type of child to pull wings off flies or put frogs into a saucepan to see what happened, and carefully removing the armored casing of books that surrounded Billy was inexplicably cruel.

As he removed the last layer, he wasn’t careful enough and Billy winced in his sleep before opening his eyes to stare at Tommy like he was an incomprehensible stranger who was making his life more difficult than he could bear.

Tommy didn’t know why it hurt, but he got angry instead of thinking about it.

“Look after your own stuff,” Tommy said roughly, grabbing the remaining books with very little grace and shoving them onto the free space on the desk. “And stop being an asshole and call Kate.”

He didn’t look at Billy. He clenched his teeth as Billy said “I’m sorry,” and his hands balled to fists as Billy began to cry.

The next day he told Billy’s teachers in no uncertain terms that he would not be bringing Billy’s assignments home and that if they made him they wouldn’t like the consequences. This earned him some after school detentions and a session with the school counselor as they explained in painstakingly careful words that while Tommy was stressed he couldn’t threaten Billy’s teachers like that. Tommy flipped them the bird on his way out.

He couldn’t understand how Teddy was able to patiently tell Billy about the things he’s seen that day at school. Billy’s answers are short and disconnected, but in the intimate space of Billy’s bed he seems slightly more interested. Or maybe that’s just because Teddy was the one talking and even being the biggest sad sack in Manhattan can’t stop Billy from being a sappy loser in love. Tommy had to admire that dedication. It wasn’t for him, but he had to admire it.

_Fifty-seven Days After_

It’s peculiarly reassuring to realize that Teddy is just as rubbed raw about Billy’s constant state of mopey misery as Tommy was. At first Tommy wasn’t sure whether he was right, because it’s only been a recent thing that Teddy and Tommy had any kind of relationship at all that wasn’t about Billy. Tommy always assumed that Teddy was this unflappable steady anchor in the emotional drama storm that was Billy. It came as a surprise when he wasn’t, and that a lot of that was faked. 

Tommy sighed at how difficult it was to be the older brother, and then took Teddy out to buy comics. He’d had to look up the comic stores on the internet when no one was using the family computer – Tommy not owning his own and refusing to let the Kaplans buy one for him – and then wiping the history afterward. He supposed that had he simply asked Teddy he would have been able to rattle off where they all were, but the whole point was to get him outside. It wasn’t until they were on the subway that Tommy told him about it, along with an exasperated rant about how people in New York just don’t _walk_ anywhere, and it was not that far from Chelsea to Times Square.

“There had better be some girls here,” Tommy said as they made their way up the flight of stairs to Midtown Comics. “Because this is bad enough but if it’s wall to wall unwashed nerds I’m going home.”

There were some girls there, though they didn’t seem interested in Tommy, which he thought was weird because firstly he was _Tommy Shepherd_ and secondly he was easily the hottest guy there. He struck out with every girl he spoke to on both floors, which he chalked up as them either being blind or gay, both of which he couldn’t hold against them really.

“You done yet?” he asked Teddy, who had a stack of books tucked under his arm.

“I think so,” Teddy said. “They don’t have what I’m looking for.”

“Oh good,” Tommy said. “Because it looked like you were taking the whole store with you.”

Teddy didn’t respond to Tommy, instead calmly paying for the books and waiting as they were put into plastic bags.

The walk back to the Times Square was quiet, with Teddy sneaking looks at Tommy every so often.

“What are you doing?” Tommy said in frustration after a few minutes of this.

“Thank you,” Teddy said.

“Don’t,” Tommy said, and wasn’t sure what he was stopping Teddy from doing. Teddy smiled but said nothing more.

They boarded the subway in silence and said nothing for the rest of the trip home. It wasn’t an awkward silence though, which was rare for Tommy. It was simply a silence where the two participants didn’t need to say anything more.

Tommy ended up having to hide the comics in his room in case Billy decided that he wanted to visit Teddy in his room. Tommy kept to himself the unlikeliness of this ever occurring, because that would mean that Billy would have to get out of bed and interact with real living people, rather than the constructs inside his own mind. Teddy thanked him again, after everything was hidden away, and Tommy just blew him off. 

It had been a good day, and Tommy could hear Teddy tell Billy a truncated version of what they had done that day. Billy had sounded interested, actually asking questions of his own accord, and today Tommy didn’t feel jealous that Teddy could have a coherent conversation with Billy and Tommy couldn’t. He did, however, add ‘we don’t need to hide stuff from him’ to his list. If someone was powerful enough to alter reality, Tommy thought, they should have the courage to see reality for what it is first.

However, this was the last of the good days. 

_Eighty-seven Days After_

Two months passed and Billy still wasn’t better. He still slept more hours a day than he was awake. The nighttime conversations that Tommy can overhear grow shorter and shorter, until they become a broken monologue with pauses for Billy to talk if he chose to. Tommy thinks this is the saddest thing he’s ever heard and eventually stopped listening in through the wall. He thought maybe he should go for a run to anywhere, just to escape before he got dragged down too, but he made a promise. He made a promise to someone who wasn’t really his little brother, but he might as well be one.

The whole situation is uncomfortable and strained, and Tommy is almost relieved when it comes to a head, as unfortunate as it is, at the breakfast table before Teddy and Tommy went off to school. Thankfully the other Kaplans were either already at before school care or work, and so weren’t witness to it.

Teddy stirred honey into his rolled oats, an affectation that Tommy did not understand even with the demands his metabolism made on him, and carefully avoided making eye contact. In Tommy’s experience this meant that Teddy was going to say something that Tommy didn’t really want to hear about, so he shoveled a spoon of cereal into his mouth so that he had a valid reason to not answer.

“Can’t you just ... convince him that things are better?” was what Teddy finally came out with. It was even more ridiculous than Tommy had assumed it would be and he rolled his eyes underneath his hair where he assumed that if Teddy could see it he would be too polite to call him on it.

After swallowing his mouthful, Tommy looked up to see if Teddy had taken the hint and was giving up the conversation. He hadn’t. Tommy shot him an incredulous look and gestured with his empty spoon. “Why would that work?”

“Well,” Teddy said carefully. “There’s the whole ...” He stopped then, and gestured at Tommy, a gesture that Tommy was utterly at sea to interpret at first. Then it dawned on him and he shook his head in exasperation.

“You think we have a _psychic twin bond_?” Tommy was more scathing than he had intended to be, and it wasn’t until then that he realized just how much he bitterly resented the whole ‘identical twin’ thing. To make matters worse, the painfully hopeful expression on Teddy’s face made it quite clear that was exactly what he was alluding to. The fragility of Teddy’s hope withered away Tommy’s anger, leaving him tired and worn.

“No,” Tommy said, feeling a pang of guilt as Teddy’s face folded in on itself. “We just look alike. We’re not really twins.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief when Teddy left the subject alone. 

The whole subject of what it meant to be the reincarnation of whatever he had been before was something Tommy had little interest in exploring. He’d received a few messages from the Scarlet Witch wanting to catch up, and he’d been short and perfunctory in his replies. It had been Billy who had pinned all his hopes on being someone other than he was. Tommy, on the other hand, preferred being Thomas Shepherd over Thomas Maximoff or whatever identity they wanted to impose on him. He didn’t even _know_ Thomas Maximoff, and he sure didn’t know Wanda either.

Eventually the messages stopped and Tommy wasn’t sure whether he was sad about this or not. He hadn’t seen his mother since he was in juvie, and his father since he was little. The Kaplans, though nice, weren’t his parents and their niceness was just too much to bear. He was sure it was giving him cavities. He didn’t think he could put up with another well-meaning person being nice to him, even if she was his preincarnation’s mother. So he deleted the text messages.

_One Hundred and Fifty Days After_

Nine weeks passed and Tommy realized that the world went on without Speed.

For the last year he had been involved in almost every superheroic event and now he was stuck on the sidelines watching as they passed him by, seemingly uncaring that he wasn’t participating. In a peculiar way, he resented it. 

“I can’t believe that they don’t even _call_ us anymore,” he complained to Teddy on the way home from school. “I could have taken on spiders. I am _awesome_ at spider control.”

“It sorted itself out in the end,” Teddy said, shifting his messenger bag on his shoulder.

That really wasn’t the point, Tommy thought. It wasn’t so much ‘sort itself out in the end’ as ‘go on in much the same way as it had before’, which was just infuriating. Of course, Tommy didn’t want the world to _end_ just because he wasn’t out on the street, but he would have appreciated it if everyone had struggled a _little_ without him.

“I suppose you think it’s better this way,” he said to the pavement under his feet, scowling bitterly at it as if it was responsible for all of his problems.

“No,” Teddy said. “And I think you’re right to be angry. You did a lot of good as Speed.”

Tommy wasn’t sure whether he liked the use of past tense, and he definitely didn’t want to admit that he appreciated that _someone_ acknowledged that he was more than just the token ruthless guy in the group.

“You were okay,” he said to Teddy in reply. “Not as good as me, of course, but who is?”

“Quicksilver?” Teddy said, and grinned when Tommy scowled. Quicksilver was _not_ in Tommy’s league and he would tell anyone who would listen this.

“You know,” Teddy went on. “If you went out, I wouldn’t tell anyone. I know you’re not happy about having to stay here.”

Tommy didn’t know he was so transparent about how uncomfortable domestic life made him. While at first he had tried to shake things up, eventually even he had settled into a routine: he made breakfast, he dressed for school, he attended classes while desperately wanting to be elsewhere, he came home, he played games until he got bored. It wasn’t what he had wanted. It was domestic and it was _horrifying_. He didn’t expect though that Teddy could have seen that, as it was less intrusive as Billy’s issues.

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy said. He _did_ know. Months of living with Teddy had made it quite clear that Teddy was almost too good to be true. “But I promised.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said.

Tommy turned the conversation over in his head later on, during math class. He _had_ promised, but it was a promise he had made under different circumstances. He knew he wasn’t going to keep it indefinitely, being a superhero was just in his blood, but he supposed he could keep it until Billy was better.

Whatever _better_ meant. Billy had been ‘bad’ for so long that Tommy wasn’t even sure what Billy was like before. He caught himself studying photographs of Billy looking for the person he used to be. Billy never photographed well, always caught in a moment of wry self-conscious gawkiness, but this was the person that Tommy remembered, and the person to whom the list in his room was addressed towards retrieving. This was the person that, until he came back, Tommy would have to wait for. It _sucked_ and he was moody and argumentative for the rest of the day after he realized that.

It became apparent to everyone else soon enough what Tommy had already realized: Billy was not going to get better on his own. He supposed that some of that might be because they were hoping, but Tommy preferred to see clearly, and someone who spent most of the last three months in his room was not someone who wanted to get better.

_One Hundred and Seventy-One Days After_

On the second day of the twelfth week after the last good day Billy had had action was finally taken. Tommy was in the kitchen making lunch for school, having realized that cafeteria food was terrible no matter where you were, when he heard Billy and Mrs Kaplan talking. He put down the knife and moved closer to the doorway to hear better. He couldn’t see them, but that was for the best; if he could see them then they could see _him_.

“Billy,” Mrs Kaplan said, speaking in what Tommy had mentally dubbed her psych voice. There was a pause.

“Yeah, mom?” Billy said finally. In contrast to Mrs Kaplan’s carefully modulated voice, Billy’s voice was entirely devoid of inflection. He often spoke like that now. It was honestly kind of creepy; while Billy had been good at deadpan sarcasm before everything had happened, there was a distinct difference between deadpan and flat. Tommy hadn’t appreciated that until the last few months.

“Billy, there’s someone at my work I want you to see.”

“Okay.”

“They specialize in dealing with superhuman matters.”

“Okay.”

“I haven’t told them about you yet, but if you want to see them...”

“Okay.”

“I’ll talk to them today then.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to school today?”

“No.”

“I’ll speak to your teachers, and see if Theodore can bring your work home for you.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Billy, and I’m very proud of you,”

A pause. “I love you too, mom.”

Tommy waited until he couldn’t hear the clicks from Mrs Kaplan’s shoes against the tiled floor and until he heard the front door open and close before he escaped the kitchen. Billy was sitting on the windowsill with his leg drawn up; wearing the clothes he’d been wearing the last few days ago. He looked up as Tommy walked through the room, sandwich in one hand and coffee in the other, and his expression changed subtly from tired to tired and almost but not completely apathetic.

“You heard that,” Billy said. Despite the flicker of interest in his expression, Billy still spoke with that strange flat affect.

“They probably know some hot superhero ladies,” Tommy said, rather than denying it. “If they do, I want their numbers.”

Billy sighed. “She means well. It’s just … what’s wrong with me isn’t something they can fix.”

Tommy shrugged. “Want to play Xbox?”

“I’m just not a good person,” Billy said. He was looking at Tommy for the first time in a while, and Tommy noticed absently that Billy was not someone who could grow a beard, which did not bode well for Tommy’s future beard prospects. The stubble was growing in patchy, and he wondered idly whether it itched. He supposed not. If it did, Billy surely would have gotten rid of it. Billy didn’t say anything more, seemingly waiting for an answer.

“Okay,” Tommy said, when the silence stretched on too long. “But can we have this talk with controllers? And lots of cartoon bloodshed?”

“Fine,” Billy said on a sigh. He didn’t move from the windowsill, instead gazing out at the street. Tommy craned his head to see if there is anything remotely interesting outside to attract Billy’s attention, but it didn’t look that way. The view was much the same as it was every other day. Whatever has Billy’s attention, it wasn’t anything that Tommy can see.

Teddy came down while Tommy was swearing on XBox Live as he was being sniped in Call of Duty. Billy hadn’t looked over at Tommy once, not even after he had used language that, if reported, would cause the console itself to be banned.

“No school?” Teddy said, standing at the doorway.

“Nah,” Tommy said, returning fire. “I got better things to do.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Teddy said, wryly, as he sat down next to Tommy. “You wanna come over, Billy?”

“No,” Billy said finally. “I’ll do it later.”

“You know he doesn’t hear you,” Tommy said. “The only thing that matters to Billy is Billy.”

“That’s not true,” Teddy said. He sounded tired, but certain. 

“Sure, whatever,” Tommy said. “You want to pick up that controller? I got some ten year olds giving me crap and it’s time we schooled them.”

Teddy stared at the controller. “It’s Billy’s,” he said. 

“Fine, we’ll swap.”

Teddy’s silent at this, and Tommy wondered if Teddy heard him, or whether he was going to be the only person left in the room interacting with others at all. Then Teddy made this strange broken sob at the back of his throat.

“Oh hell,” Tommy said, as Teddy folds in on himself, burying his face in his hands. He shot a desperate look at Billy before awkwardly putting his hand between Teddy’s shoulder blades. This just caused him to crumple further, and Tommy just rested his hand on the back of Teddy’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said.

“I don’t care,” Tommy said. He realized shortly afterward this could be misconstrued. Teddy understood though. It’s always been what Teddy can do, understand people. Eli had theorized once that it was part of Teddy’s skillset, but Tommy’s attention had wandered before Eli had explained just why he thought that. 

“I am — I’m _so sorry_ ,” Teddy said again, swallowing a few times.

“Still don’t care,” Tommy said as he wondered what he was meant to do with his hand. He settled for petting Teddy’s hair as he shuddered and sobbed, wondering whether this was kind of gay. He decided it wasn’t: if it was then surely Billy would have something to say about that? It would be the most exciting thing that happened that day.

In the background, he could hear the team he was playing against insult his mother, and he cracked a smile at this, finding it blackly hilarious. If it weren’t for their ridiculous, misguided quest for their mother, then Cassie would still be alive. Tommy still wasn’t sure if it was worth it. Family, it seemed, was more complicated than everyone made it seem, and he didn’t want complications.

Teddy settled down eventually, his sobs subsiding into the occasional hiccup.

“I’m okay,” Teddy said. His voice wavered, but didn’t quite crack. “Thanks for helping.”

Tommy moved his hand from Teddy’s hair in a quick, flustered gesture. Thankfully, no one commented on it. 

Mrs Kaplan came home to the sight of Teddy and Tommy being blown off the map by a well-placed enemy rocket launcher and Billy, despite himself, watching the screen with vague interest.

“No school?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said earnestly. Teddy always spoke earnestly when he talked to the Kaplans. “I needed a mental health day.”

‘Mental health day’ to Tommy seemed like a get out of school free card, but it always seemed to work on the psychologist of the family. She smiled at Teddy and said that it was good that he was taking care of his mental health, and that she would take care of things at school for all three of them. She then talks at Billy about the psychologist she knows who would love to meet Billy when he’s ready to talk.

Billy’s not ready for another two months, when Ms Marvel dropped in out of the sky and whisked them off to the Avengers Mansion.

_Two Hundred and Fifty Days After_

At first, Billy in therapy was not that much different to Billy out of therapy. He still barely interacted with the family, wore the same clothing for several days in a row, and only ever shaving after Teddy asked him too. His clothing was still too big for him around the wrists, which went with the vaguely pinched look around his face, and he still looked like life was just too exhausting to deal with. That said, he talked a little more, and sometimes he could be the sarcastic nerd that got Tommy of juvie. Those moments just made the times when he was quiet and still even more frustrating, because now everyone knew that he _could_ be the person he was, he just _wasn’t_.

Or at least that was Tommy’s perspective. He wanted to shake Billy until he was better. Instead, he got a part time job assembling parts at the local factory, and he was able to come and go as he pleased.

“Where have you been?” Teddy asked, looking up from his homework. 

“Out,” Tommy said larconically.

Teddy’s response was a raised eyebrow. 

“I got a job,” Tommy said. “You should try it.”

Teddy shrugged. “I asked Mrs Kaplan about it, and she was offended that I would even think about it rather than focusing on school.”

Tommy hadn’t thought to ask the Kaplans because he didn’t think it was their place to tell him what he could and could not do outside of the house. Maybe someone else might have thought to do it, but Tommy was tired of being provided for when he could provide for himself.

“Yeah, well, that’s your choice,” Tommy said, holding back the biting retort that he had wanted to say. It wouldn’t be fair. Tommy knew that what Teddy was actually doing was providing a stabilizing force to Billy, something that Tommy could not — or indeed _would_ not — do.

“You know they won’t take your money,” Teddy said. “I offered when …” he took a breath. “I offered it when my mom died, and they told me that I needed that for when I got older.”

“That’s why I _have_ a job,” Tommy said. “So that I don’t need to take _their_ money. Ever.”

That was part of it. 

“You’ve got dirt on your face,” Teddy said. “Red clay like that stains, you know.”

Tommy made a face and wiped at his face with his fingertips. They came back smeared with red dirt.

“I won’t tell Billy if you don’t,” Teddy said. “You’re happier this way, and it’s not something that concerns him.”

That was the other reason. As Tommy had never provided anyone with his work roster, he was able to use ‘going to work’ as an excuse to ease back into using his super speed for things. Now that he thought about it, Tommy doesn’t know why he assumed that Teddy wouldn’t support his going out. He has been suggesting it for months after all.

With Teddy’s blessing, Tommy stepped up his international jaunts. He ran to places he’s never heard of outside of atlases, ate the local food, occasionally threw up the local food to the amusement of everyone around him, and returned home, no one the wiser. He felt more alive than he has for ages, and Kate commented on this when she spoke to him next.

“It’s the tan,” Tommy said in reply. “Wanna go to Australia?”

“Not this week,” Kate said. “I went last week with Hawkguy.”

“Aw,” Tommy said. “I’d protect you from dropbears much better than he could.” There was a twinge of jealousy there, despite the fact that Kate said that she and Clint were partners, because Clint could see Kate in ways that Tommy couldn’t now. This also sucked.

“There’s no such thing as dropbears,” Kate said sternly, but she smiled as she said it. It had been a while since Kate smiled like that at him. Cassie’s death had been almost as hard on her as it had been on Billy. “Besides, I’d be the one protecting _you_.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Tommy said, giving her a sly grin. “I got you covered.”

She laughed at this. It’s been a long time since anyone laughed in the Kaplan household, even if it is through a Skype connection, and it sounded oddly raucous. Tommy liked it. 

“I missed you, Tommy,” she said before disconnecting. Tommy thought that was very unfair. Why would you say that and then hang up? _Women_.

“I would suggest not telling her that to her face,” Teddy said later, when Tommy told him about it.

“Well, yeah,” Tommy said. “She’d shoot me.”

“Good priorities, Tommy,” Billy said from where he sat by the window. His voice was rough with disuse, and quiet, but the sarcasm is still very clear. He occasionally chimed in with comments like these now, and the novelty’s worn enough that Tommy doesn’t act like it’s a surprise that Billy can speak. Every time Billy said something, even if it was biting or sarcastic, Teddy unwound a little more, and Tommy was not enough of an asshole to deny him that.

He ticked off ‘thinks his retorts are clever’ from the list along with ‘didn’t let me beat him in GTA’ and ‘made faces as I told someone to suck my dick’. Tommy was very proud of the last one, not the least because it had been a very impressive sniper effort, and Billy’s look of exasperated annoyance afterward was completely worth the temporary ban from Xbox Live for inappropriate language. 

_Two Hundred and Sixty-Five Days After_

Tommy didn’t know when he started to give a damn what Teddy thought. It might have been when he tried to help after Cassie died. It might have been when he broke down on the couch and Tommy was the only one with the energy to react. It probably was how Teddy was the only one who saw what Tommy wanted in life and encouraged him to go after it. It wasn’t really something that Tommy had had a lot of experience with. If it was anyone else Tommy would wonder if this was kind of gay, but he saw how Teddy looked at Billy and _that_ was gay. This was something else. Friendship, he supposed, though it was far more intimate than his last few relationships. That seemed backward.

As time passed, things got better. It helped that the more that Billy spoke, the better he got at doing it: he was able to carry on an entire conversation with a quasi-normal level of animation at about the same time that he started bathing semi-regularly without being told, both of which were items that got ticked off the list with a great sigh of relief. Sharing a house with a smelly zombie was not Tommy’s idea of fun. Billy still wasn’t normal but he was closer to it now, and Tommy started to feel fractious about it all. 

Tommy had been an only child for as long as he could remember, and he was surprised that he found himself _invested_ in Billy being all right. He remembered being told, before he was sent to juvie, that he never did think about how anyone else might be affected by his actions. If only his parents could see him now. Of course, that would mean their being able to be in the same room, and that hadn’t happened since Tommy was six years old.

Finally, he showed Teddy the list he’d been preparing over the eternity that Billy had spent catatonic and really boring. From what had started as a short note on a post-it note had grown into a one hundred item list, complete with dates written next to them when Billy had achieved them. There weren’t that many dated entries, but they seemed to come in clusters.

As Teddy read over it, frowning at certain parts, Tommy wondered whether he should have taken out ‘stop making it all about him’ and ‘getting some perspective’. They’re true things that Billy does need to learn, but maybe he could have phrased it a little more gently. 

“This list,” Teddy said, after taking entirely too long to read all the items on it. “It doesn’t contain Billy going back to being a superhero.”

Tommy cursed himself for being so transparent. “Do you think he’ll be one?” he said instead, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. “After all, he _quit_. It’s no big deal, I’ll find other people. If I need them. I probably won’t. I mean, who can stand up to me?”

“Anyone who can punch you in the face,” Teddy said, which was both unfortunately true and a terrible reference to the first time Tommy fought a Skrull, and therefore was doubly unfair.

“Pfft, like anything could,” Tommy said instead, pointedly ignoring Teddy’s sympathetic look. He didn’t need Teddy’s sympathy, or anyone’s, really. “I _suppose_ though, that if you want to come along when you finally slip the leash, that’s cool.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that,” Teddy said. Tommy looked up at the censure in his voice. It was rare for Teddy to express anger to one of his acquaintances or friends.

“He’s not making me stay here,” Teddy said. “I _choose_ to.”

“I don’t believe that,” Tommy said. “But lie if you want. No skin off my nose.”

_Two Hundred and Eighty Days After_

Eventually, Billy achieved the first big ticket item on Tommy’s leaving list, which was also the one that Tommy was sure that Billy was going to do last: he decided that he was ready to go back to school. Mr Kaplan looked delighted; Mrs Kaplan nervous; and Teddy said very quietly to her that he'd make sure it was okay. 

Tommy didn’t know how Teddy could make promises that no one could keep, or how he managed to sound so convincing promising them.

He was loathe to make such promises himself, and instead appointed himself as the person to get Billy out of bed to get school, being as he is the only person who is utterly immune to Billy's kicked puppy faces as he was encouraged to do things he didn’t want to do. While Teddy had smiled and said that wasn’t necessary, it clearly was because on the first day back of term, Billy seemed intent to sleep the entire day away.

"Maybe he just needs a familiar face," Teddy said hopefully. Tommy rolled his eyes. Those jokes really should have been retired ages ago. As he raced up the stairs to knock loudly on Billy’s door a fourth time that morning to get him out of bed, he wondered what he’d even say to him if they shared more than bone structure. He knew not to say things like _stop wallowing_ , but that was really about it.

“I’m coming,” Billy said as the door finally opened, and Tommy rolled his eyes.

“I am the _last_ person you want to say that to,” he said, and didn’t even try to hide his grin as Billy’s expression changed to complete and utter disgust. “But hey! Maybe you guys have a twin fetish!”

“I really hope not,” Teddy said from downstairs. “One of you is enough for me, and he’s the better looking one.”

“We’re _identical_ ,” Tommy pointed out. “Shouldn’t that mean you’re secretly jonseying for me too? I can understand, I know I’d do me too.”

“I’m _right here_ ,” Billy pointed out. “And we’re not completely identical.”

“Yeah, because you are rocking the hobo look. You have _two_ minutes to claim the bathroom before it’s mine.”

Billy sighed as if the thought of going back to school was too much to bear, but shuffled down the corridor to the bathroom.

“I thought you kissed it better,” Tommy accused as he raced back down the stairs to finish his breakfast before Billy had his shower.

Teddy looked skeptical as he methodically finished his cereal. “I don’t think that’s in my skillset.”

"So not only do you guys kiss like, all the time, but it doesn't even do anything?"

"I wouldn't say that," Teddy said.

Tommy was still making exaggerated noises of disgust when Billy finished using the bathroom. Then he stared.

“You’ve done something with your hair,” he said, finally putting his finger on what had changed. Normally Billy and Tommy’s hair were mirror images of one another, a fact that Tommy had initially found disturbing but had come to terms with on the grounds of he had his hairstyle _first_ and wasn’t about to change it. Billy, on the other hand, had no such strong beliefs, and had now parted his hair to one side and swept it across.

“That’s very observant of you,” Billy said. 

“I like it,” Teddy said and Billy noticeably brightened. Tommy noticeably pretended to gag and then had to ignore Billy and Teddy being affectionate for the rest of the morning, until they arrived at school. Tommy raced off at not-quite superspeed, on the grounds that if he hung around them any longer he would break out in hives.

He hated having to tick off ‘was sickeningly sappy with Teddy’, because that meant thinking about Billy’s tongue in Teddy’s mouth. At least he had eight hours of imagination-killing classes to go so that maybe thinking of them French-kissing would eventually become about as awkward as them cleaning a toilet.

_Two Hundred and Eighty Days After (and eight hours)_

Tommy was distracted for the rest of the day thinking about Billy, though he was relieved that he managed to move on from the horrible mental picture of Billy and Teddy and sex. He’d been attending the school long enough to know that Billy, while not public enemy number one, had been widely regarded as a soft target for any bully who wanted to earn his Boy Scout badge in gay hate crime or whatever they called it in New York. Teddy could look after him for the classes they had together, but Tommy and Billy didn’t have any classes in common. Tommy’s plan to underperform so that he wasn’t compared to Billy was, in retrospect, a terrible idea.

He didn’t hear anything about anyone getting electrocuted or the like throughout the day, but even then he didn’t relax until he saw Billy waiting by the fence, looking oddly forlorn without Teddy beside him. Billy didn’t look up as people walked past him, and people didn’t look at him while they passed, but that was better than the alternative.

“Hey,” Tommy said. Billy looked up at this.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Teddy’s class gets out a little late.”

Billy didn’t say anything after this, and Tommy didn’t either. Teddy, when he finally arrived, seemed to sense the awkward mood and said nothing either, after looking at Billy carefully before smiling. It wasn’t until they were most of the way home that someone spoke.

“I honestly expected someone to call me a mutie freak again,” Billy said. His expression was a peculiar mix of self-depreciation and wonder, or at least that was the only way that Tommy could think of to describe it.

“Tommy beat up anyone who called you that while you were away,” Teddy said. 

Tommy started in surprise. He didn’t think anyone had noticed that his choice in people he picked fights with was a lot less random than it appeared. The teachers at school certainly hadn’t, or didn’t care enough to. In Tommy’s experience, teacher indifference was the norm rather than the rule, and so he’d learned to take things into his own hands. He’d never expected to be found out. “That’s not true,” he protested.

“Tommy, you’re hardly subtle,” Teddy said. Tommy glanced at Teddy, looking for some sign that he was being mocked. He couldn’t see one. Teddy just smiled at him in that disgustingly open, genuine way he had.

“No, not really,” Billy said, with a wry smile of his own. “But thanks.”

“Whatever,” Tommy said, deciding that if there was any mockery, it was too subtle for him to notice and therefore care about. “It’s just because you and I look alike. I got sick of dealing with that just because you won’t punch them.”

“It’s more _can’t_ ,” Billy admitted. 

“We’ve tried teaching Billy how to punch,” Teddy said, slinging his arm around Billy’s shoulders. “He always closes his eyes and flinches when he throws a punch.”

“Aw,” Tommy said, half-singing his words. “Widdle Billy feels bad for them.”

“Shut up,” Billy said with a scowl. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Awwwww,” Tommy said. “ _Awwww._ ”

“Shut _up_ ,” Billy said.

This continued on until they arrived home. Mr Kaplan was waiting for them, which Tommy found strange. The idea of someone arranging their shifts just to see their teenaged son come home was not in Tommy’s experience at all.

“How was school, boys?” he said, looking up from his coffee.

“Okay,” Billy said. 

“Good,” Teddy said.

“Boring,” Tommy said.

As all of this was said at the same time, Tommy had no idea how Mr Kaplan understood any of it.

“I’m glad to hear that, Theodore and Billy,” he said. “Not so much, Thomas.”

Tommy shrugged, having learned long ago that Mr Kaplan will never call him by a nickname. “School _is_ boring.”

“Anyway, dad, I got to go do homework,” Billy interrupted. Tommy made a note to himself to mark off ‘does homework like a nerd’ when he got back upstairs. “Thanks for waiting for us.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Mr Kaplan said. Tommy realized, with a flicker of surprise, that he was completely telling the truth: it was no trouble at all for a cardiologist to rearrange his schedule. He knew that Billy’s parents were ridiculously understanding and patient with Billy but _damn_. It’s not something that Tommy is accustomed to. 

His parents, when they were together, didn’t have the luxury of being able to arrange their schedules, and his mother had had to take on a second job to keep him in clothes and food after his father left. Any time she had had to rearrange her schedule it had been because Tommy had done something at school that needed parental discipline. In a way, his being sent off to juvie was a relief, because at least then she didn’t have to work a second job and constantly have to explain to her bosses why she had to leave all the time. It still didn’t explain why she _left_ him there when it came out what was going on, but he could understand the initial reason.

It was an uncomfortable feeling to realize that had the same occurred to Billy, his parents would have torn down every brick in the place to rescue their son. It’s an even more uncomfortable feeling to realize that this is _normal_ , and that it’s Tommy’s family that were not normal. What he won’t think about, even though it’s the obvious conclusion, is that Dr and Mrs Kaplan would do the same for Tommy if given time to know him. They were simply that kind of people. If he allowed himself to realize this he would have to leave immediately, rather than the distant but manageable prospect of a few months. The prospect of having to wait a few months didn’t disturb Tommy as much as it used to. A few months before Billy started interacting with the world would have been hellish — and had been hellish, in fact — but now Billy was making tangible progress. 

“Thanks, Mr Kaplan,” Teddy said. “We really appreciate it.”

Tommy didn’t disagree with this at all, but not necessarily for the reasons that Teddy did.

_Three Hundred and Ten Days After_

What he did find surprising though was that once Billy was attending school again, even if he did have to come home afterward and sleep longer than Tommy thought was normal, was that Billy got a lot better. It was the opposite of what he expected to happen.

“Billy doesn’t like school,” Teddy said by way of explanation when Tommy remarked on this. “But he does like learning things.”

“That’s weird,” Tommy said, successfully sniping someone in Call of Duty. Judging by the stream of profanity that followed, it was clearly a very angry twelve year old. “Everyone knows that school is where you go to not learn things.”

“Maybe for you,” Teddy said, annoyingly not biting at Tommy’s comment. “You were the one who kept insisting that you and Billy weren’t alike.”

“Because we _aren’t_ ,” Tommy said. He tuned out what Teddy was saying for a moment, focusing his attention on the game. It was hard to play video games when you had super speed, because the processor couldn’t keep up with his reflexes, and so Tommy had to consciously keep his speed under control.

“But, you know, he appreciates you,” Teddy said, and Tommy realized that he had missed a part of the conversation that might have been important. He wondered if it was worth running away, but decided that he was a _superhero_ , even if he was one in retirement, and superheroes didn’t run away at anything. Even if it looked suspiciously like heart to heart conversations. At least this time Teddy probably wasn’t going to burst into tears. “He was afraid of going back, but I told him that you’d taken care of the problem.”

“Oh, so it’s not that I’m not _subtle_ , it’s that you _told_ him,” Tommy said, picking up on the important thing.

“Yeah, that’s the important part,” Teddy said.

“And I thought Billy was the sarcastic one,” Tommy said, turning his attention back to the video game. “Also I’m going to be leaving next month.”

“I figured,” Teddy said.

Tommy dropped the controller.

“What?” he blurted out, staring at Teddy in shock. “How did _you_ figure that out?”

“It wasn’t hard,” Teddy said. “Billy hasn’t done everything on your list, but you would have worked out by now he’s not going to for a while yet.”

Tommy hadn’t. He had figured that Billy would get around to it when he wanted to, and felt a pang of guilt about this.

“Great,” Tommy said. “You had to say that.”

Teddy didn’t say anything more and the silence stretched out for at least a whole sixty seconds before Tommy had to fill it.

“Everyone’s just too _nice_ ,” Tommy said quickly.

Teddy laughed at this, and Tommy glared.

“No, it’s true,” Teddy said, putting his hands up and nodding in agreement. “The Kaplans are the nicest people I know. I still can’t believe they took both of us in.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not freeloading anymore,” Tommy said stubbornly. He set his jaw, expecting Teddy to convince him otherwise.

“I’ll tell Billy,” Teddy said instead. Tommy stared at him before closing his mouth with an audible snap of teeth.

“Uh, okay,” he said.

“He’ll understand,” Teddy said. “You stayed. That matters. To him and to me. And he already knew about the list, by the way. You weren’t very subtle about it.”

“Ugh,” Tommy said, picking up the controller and returning to his mission of programmed carnage. “I am subtle when I want to be.”

_Three Hundred and Forty Days After (Or The First Day of Now)_

A month later, Tommy had folded all of his clothes into a duffle bag, left a note for the Kaplans on the kitchen table and had almost made it out the door without anyone seeing him. Almost was the operative word, as Billy caught him just as he was opening the door.

“So you’re really going,” Billy said, fiddling with his new piercing.

“That piercing is so gay,” Tommy said, affecting a sneer.

“You’ve said that before,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t funny the first time. Besides, you’re avoiding the topic.”

“It’s a stupid topic,” Tommy said.

“It’s _not_ ,” Billy said, setting his jaw and scowling. The effect was ruined by what Tommy was sure was a pout.

“Your mom wants the spare room back,” Tommy said with a one-shouldered shrug.

“Yeah, whatever,” Billy said. He folded his arms, and Tommy was struck that for the first time it was in annoyance rather than as a shield against further assault. It had been a while since Billy had folded his arms that way, and that just strengthened Tommy’s resolve. “You better check in every so often, got it?”

“What are you, my mom?”

Tommy regretted saying that once he saw Billy’s smirk. 

“No, but she’ll be coming after you next and she’s a _lot_ more persistent.”

It was this moment that Tommy decided that instead of mocking Billy’s obsession with editing the Scarlet Witch’s Heropedia page, he should have been reading it.

“Fine, fine,” he said, waving a hand in dismissal. “I’ll send you an email every month or so.”

“You better,” Billy said. Then he unfolded his arms and sighed. “Thanks. For staying. I know it was hard for you. Like, really hard, and I appreciate it, even if your list was really stupid at times. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said finally. “I know it.” Then he grinned. “Because I’m _awesome_.”

“Oh, get out of here!” Billy said, stepping out of his path. Tommy waved jauntily, tossed his bag more securely over one shoulder and, once out of sight, ran as fast as he could. He had a world to see, the freedom to do it in, and the sort-of quasi-blessing from people whose opinion a year ago he didn’t really care about. It was a strange world he lived in, he decided, before taking a right turn to Australia. He had a dropbear to find and dump on Kate when she wasn’t watching.


End file.
